Bank of Baroda eyes 10-11% corporate loan growth in H2FY26, says CEO Debadatta Chand

Bank of Baroda

State-owned lender Bank of Baroda is optimistic on the revival of the corporate credit in the second half of the current financial year, and hopes to achieve 10-11 percent growth without compromising margins, said Debadatta Chand, managing director and chief executive officer on October 31.

The optimism comes on the back of a strong pipeline of sanctioned and under-process loans amounting to nearly Rs 65,000 crore.

Chand said the lender currently has Rs 40,000 crore worth of sanctioned corporate loans awaiting disbursal and another Rs 25,000 crore of proposals under various stages of processing.

“The pipeline is very strong for the bank to get into a growth of almost 10–11 percent. We believe that we can achieve this growth without compromising our NIM aspirations,” Chand said during the post earnings conference call.

The bank expects much of the corporate loan momentum to be visible in Q3 and Q4, traditionally the busy season for banks, aided by an uptick in private capital expenditure and higher working capital utilization.

“We are holding our strategy intact. The demand coming back from the market will allow us to grow faster, but we are not chasing growth at the cost of pricing discipline,” Chand said.

The lender’s gold loan portfolio saw a sharp 40 percent year-on-year growth in Q2FY26, driven by strong traction in both retail and agriculture segments. The bank’s management said that while agri-gold loans grew 35–40 percent, the retail gold loan book expanded by 20–25 percent during the quarter. Despite the surge in gold prices, the lender remains confident about the asset quality of this segment reflecting the secured nature of the portfolio and robust underwriting standards.

The bank is keeping a close watch on fluctuations in gold prices but does not expect any significant impact on its loan-to-value (LTV) ratios or portfolio performance in the near term, Chand said.